America at Risk: The Citizen's Guide to Missile Defense

In a little over a hundred pages, Dr. Anderson has delivered a "brief" worthy of the best on Capitol Hill about the complex issues of SDI and missile defense at the end of the 1990s. With major Presidential candidates supporting missile defense now, and many of our allies asking for protection against enhanced missile threats, it is vital that taxpayers and policy makers alike know about the political and strategic issues involved. The author, recently a teaching colleague of mine, is an excellent analyst, and this new little book is a gem.

This book puts in perspective the current threat posed by hostile nuclear missiles: That the threat has INCREASED rather than decreased, that the United States has more to lose now than ever from a nuclear attack, and that the prospects for a viable defense are better than ever before. Dr. Anderson also spells out in no uncertain terms the greatest obstacle to a National Missile Defense: President Bill Clinton. The President's foreign policy is not content with providing however many millions of dollars in aid for a nation which openely supports the anti-American Iraqi and Serbian regimes, but he also wishes to appease a Russia which posesses and increasingly unstable nuclear arsenal in the interests of following our "obligations" to an ABM treaty signed in the seventies and abrogated by the USSR within a few years of its adoption. Instead, he wishes to rely on our nuclear deterrent. President Clinton, apparently, does not agree that it is morally wrong to offer defense over vengeance for the American people. I disagree with some technical details of Dr. Anderson's proposed missile defense (a ground-based weapon system would be essential to its success) but other than that I would not hesitate to recommend this book.

A must read for anyone concerned about the security of the United States. Easy to read, it makes complex issues and technology easy to understand. I highly recommend this book.